


anywhere i want (just not home)

by simplerushes



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Timeline What Timeline, soft boys :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25609483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplerushes/pseuds/simplerushes
Summary: “Sunflowers,” Shouyou announces as they stop in the middle of the field, sunflowers up to their hips, to their shoulders, sunflowers that are even taller than them. It’s beautiful and Kourai thinks that this is his new favorite place. He looks at Shouyou and he thinks that this boy is his favorite place. “Because you said they were magical,”(or: kourai and shouyou think they've got this long distance thing figured out, and you know what, maybe they do.)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Hoshiumi Kourai
Comments: 15
Kudos: 97





	anywhere i want (just not home)

**Author's Note:**

> the title is literally from taylor swift's "my tears ricochet". 
> 
> there is no list of songs for this fic, there is only one album. i listened to folklore for hours on end. that's it. that's the playlist. 
> 
> \--
> 
> also: it starts in the present, non-linear break, and then goes back to the present again. wash, rinse, repeat for the whole fic.

_“This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds,_

_like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn’t want to forget a single one.”_

_\- Banana Yoshimoto, Goodbye Tsugumi_

△

If there’s one constant thing when it comes to Hoshiumi Kourai then it’s that he keeps his promises. 

Promises that can be fulfilled within an hour, a day, a week, a promise that can stretch across his youth and then into his young adult life, across days, and weeks, and months, and years, and oceans, and too many miles to even count at this point. 

He’s got the patience of a saint, his mother had told him before, pinching his cheeks and laughing at him as Kourai waited for his little sunflower to bloom. It had been so tiny until it started to grow, until it finally blossomed and eventually outgrew him. But that’s not tragic at all because sunflowers were always his favorites. With their yellow petals and their heads always turned to the sun, smiling, laughing, dancing in the sweet afternoon breeze and drinking up the sunlight. 

Kourai loves sunflowers. He’d watched so many grow in his childhood. 

He has a sunflower in his room, too. Takes photos of it whenever he feels like it and sends them to Shouyou because Shouyou had taken him to a sunflower field, once, when they had the time. When they weren’t too far away from each other. 

But the memory is sweet and Kourai looks at the flower with a tenderness in his heart that he thinks is another constant whenever he thinks about Shouyou. 

He sends the photo with no caption at all and gets a reply almost immediately. 

_Pretty!_ Shouyou texts back. 

Kourai looks at the sunflower, and then past it at the framed photo of the both of them standing in the middle of a large sunflower field that seemed to stretch on and on, never-ending, it looked like. It stretched across the whole world, Kourai had thought. It was the single most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, back then.

 _Pretty_ , Kourai thinks, a smile on his face. That’s right. 

△

It is a very ordinary day when Shouyou tells Kourai that he’s leaving for Brazil again.

Kourai isn’t surprised. He’d seen this coming, really.

“Sure,” Kourai says, a smile on his face. Just because you’re expecting something doesn’t mean it’ll hurt any less when it happens. The blow is just softer, blunter, if anything. “When are you leaving?”

“What, you’re not gonna tell me to stay?” Shouyou asks him, eyes wide open in surprise. He leans too far into the table, moving so fast that he nearly knocks his glass of water over. 

Kourai catches it easily enough, steadying it back up. 

“Will you?” Kourai asks simply. “If I told you not to go, would you stay?” 

_No,_ Kourai knows the answer before Shouyou can even say it, so he does the only thing he can do. He reaches a hand across the table and touches a thumb to Shouyou’s chin, the motion slow, like he’s already savoring the time they have now. He lifts his hand higher until he’s swiping a thumb over Shouyou’s cheek. It’s all he can do for Shouyou to lift his eyes off his uneaten plate of food and look at him.

“Will you hate me for it?” Shouyou asks, a tremble in his voice. “If you end up resenting me for this halfway through, then I don’t know how--”

That’s the silliest question Kourai’s ever heard. Ridiculous because there’s nothing to resent whenever he looks at Hinata Shouyou, nothing to regret over or even, god forbid, hate. 

“I won’t tell you not to go,” Kourai gets up from his seat and rounds the small dining table in a few short steps. He cups a hand over Shouyou’s cheek, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to his forehead. “And you’d be really, really stupid to think that I’d hate you over something like this,”

Shouyou just looks at him with watery eyes, lips pressed tightly into a thin line. His shoulders shake from the gravity of his own decision, but that’s fine because Kourai can always hold him in his arms until the Earth finally decides to stop shaking, until the ground beneath their feet is stable once more. 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Kourai murmurs into Shouyou’s hair. 

“Was that stupid?” Shouyou’s voice is muffled as he buries his face in Kourai’s chest, arms coming around Kourai’s middle to drag him even closer. “Am I being too negative? Too stupid?”

“Nah,” there’s something magical and tragic about holding the one person you love more than the whole world and everything in it combined and knowing that it’s all you can do but also knowing that it’s all they ever want you to do, too. “Just the normal amount. Nothing too out of the ordinary,”

Shouyou laughs at last and Kourai feels the Earth righting itself again. The tectonic plates have finally stopped shifting and the world is at peace. 

It is just another ordinary day. 

△

“What are you doing today?” Shouyou is on loud speaker, his voice ringing in the empty locker room. 

“Practice,” Kourai tells him, tying his shoelaces. “And then after that, I don’t know. I’ll probably just go home,”

Shouyou hums, looking contemplative. 

“Why, what are you planning?” 

“Not planning anything at all,” Shouyou is grinning too bright for someone who’s just survived another grueling day of practice himself. “Just thought I’d bother you today,” 

He says _today_ instead of tonight because that way it almost feels like they’re both in the same timezone, just a few cities away. But Shouyou is ten thousand miles away and twelve hours behind Kourai and it is far, it is so very, achingly far. The distance is almost unimaginable sometimes but there are good days, and there are bad days, and today is a good day because Shouyou’s face is open and his eyes are sparkling, and he is relaxed, and Kourai mirrors that easily enough. 

“Or every morning,” Kourai laughs, grabbing his phone and slamming his locker door closed. Some of his teammates are starting to filter in through the doors. Kourai nods at them once before slinking out to talk to Shouyou in a more private area. 

“All the mornings,” Shouyou is saying in his ear, that same wide grin evident in the way that he talks. “Good luck with practice today,” 

Kourai taps on his phone’s screen, turning the video on quickly. 

Shouyou quickly follows.

This is routine, now. As easy as breathing. 

“Don’t say it today,” Kourai tells him. 

“I won’t,” Shouyou says, smile much more muted this time now that they’re finally seeing each other. 

Kourai smiles back at him. It is as easy as breathing. 

Shouyou taps a finger on the screen, like he’s aiming to tap Kourai’s nose, and Kourai frowns at him, eyebrows furrowing. 

“God, I can’t believe this,” Kourai finds himself laughing. 

Shouyou tries to pull this every other morning, like a sort of morning ritual for the both of them. 

It always makes Kourai blush an awful shade of red. 

“I’ll talk to you later,” Shouyou says, waving. 

Kourai’s fingers tighten around his phone. 

_Later_ and not _tomorrow_ , like they aren’t ten thousand miles away from each other. Like Shouyou is just out to the store. 

“Okay, make sure to dry your hair before sleep,” Kourai reminds him. 

Shouyou just sticks his tongue out before he ends the call. 

Kourai smiles all the way into practice, cheeks burning red and hoping to _god_ nobody points it out this time or else they’re getting a volleyball to the face. 

△

“Come on,” Hinata calls, already running ahead. 

The beach is too cold at seven in the morning and yet here they are, kicking up sand as they make a run for it. 

Kourai barely has time to register how beautiful the ocean is right after the sunrise, doesn’t have enough time to even stop and take in the salty ocean breeze because Hinata is running full steam ahead, turning around every once in a while to beckon Kourai faster, and Kourai curses, and curses under his breath because he isn’t used to running in the sand, hadn’t spent two years of his life in the beach. 

“Where are we going?” Kourai asks, finally catching up to Hinata. 

Hinata wraps his fingers around Kourai’s wrist and pulls him along behind him as they both stumble into a lighthouse, old and rickety and like something that they should not be disturbing at all costs, but Hinata is always brave, quick to jump right into the thick of things. 

The lighthouse must be haunted, or something, but Kourai can’t think too much about it because they’ve reached the top of the lighthouse already, Hinata shouldering his way through the thick, metal door. 

Hinata tugs Kourai through the door and then stops when they reach the rails. 

The view is something out of this time, completely separate from the world. 

There, beyond them, is the ocean, blue and magnificent and tinged with the colors of the sunrise. 

The clouds hang low, almost like they’re touching the water, and Kourai tells himself to breathe.

“Well, what do you think?” Hinata asks him, leaning across the rails, an easy smile on his face. 

Kourai tells himself to breathe out, this time. 

“It doesn’t feel real,” Kourai admits, looking back at the ocean. 

The lighthouse is old and rickety and it might be haunted but it still sends out a beacon of light strong enough to pass through the haze and the fog, bright enough that Kourai can still see it when he closes his eyes. 

Can still see it even after they leave, when the sunrise is now just a memory and they’re miles and miles away. All Kourai ever has to do is close his eyes and breathe in and it’s like he’s back, transported to a different time, to a nearly picturesque place that he thinks he will always find in his dreams. 

“Right, it’s pretty magical,” Hinata grins at him. 

The breeze blows his hair into his eyes and Kourai steps in closer to brush it away, fingers lingering over Hinata’s forehead for a second. 

Up here in the lighthouse; at the beach with the ocean just beyond them, it is all too easy to pretend that nothing else matters, that they are the only two boys in this quiet and beautiful world. 

“What are you looking at?” Hinata tilts his head. 

Kourai isn’t looking at anything anymore but instead he’s leaning in to kiss Hinata, hand on his cheek and then in his hair, and Hinata holding on to him, fingers clutching at Kourai’s shirt and the other resting on the small of his back as he kisses him back with the gentle tenderness similar to the way the waves roll into the share. 

“I’m looking at you,” Kourai is breathless and his face is on fire and everywhere Hinata touches is like wildfire, because he’s warm, so, so inexplicably warm that he wonders if this is what it’s like to fly too close to the sun. If this is what that poor, foolish boy Icarus felt right before his wings started to melt. 

Hinata, hand still on the small of Kourai’s back and the other resting against Kourai’s neck, thumb brushing along the line of his jaw and then down to his neck in a motion that Kourai thinks he can definitely get drunk on, just throws his head back and laughs. 

“The view is behind me,” 

The sky the color of the sunrise, the ocean, big, and blue, and beautiful, and Hinata Shouyou, in his arms, hair the color of sunrise, and smile big, and blue, and beautiful. 

Kourai just smiles and nods. Yeah, okay. 

△

  
  


It is a very ordinary day when Kourai tells Shouyou that he’s thinking about moving to another apartment. 

“What?” Shouyou asks, surprised. “What about your current apartment?”

Kourai looks around it. There are bits and pieces of Hinata Shouyou scattered everywhere, from all the clothes he’d manage to squirrel into Kourai’s closet, to his purple toothbrush in the bathroom. Shouyou’s favorite coffee cups are stored for easy access, for when Kourai misses him too much in the morning, for when he wants to wrap his fingers around the yellow cup with the dancing sunflowers wrapped around it. These are the little things that Shouyou has left in his apartment. 

“I’ll find a better one. Maybe a house this time,” Kourai tells him, shifting the phone to his other ear. “Something with a garden, maybe,” 

A small little garden just behind the house, where his flowers can grow outside of a pot, unrestrained. Where he can get sunflowers taller than himself. 

Shouyou can grow tomatoes, too, since he loves them so much. 

“Do you want a garden or, like, a terrace, maybe?” it’s a very casual question, like Kourai’s just asking him about the weather in Brazil, whether he had a good time at practice today, or if training was more grueling than usual. 

There’s silence on the other end followed by a sharp exhale. 

“Hoshiumi Kourai,” comes Shouyou’s voice. There is a very small shake in his words, like the tectonic plates have started another massive shift. “Are you asking me to move in with you?” 

“Hm, I think so,” a smile tugs on the corners of his lips. He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling, wonders if Shouyou is staring out his window right now, at the view of the city’s skyline, the bustling streets just outside his apartment alive with people at all times of the day. “Why, is this a bad time?” 

“No,” Shouyou is laughing, that sweet, sweet laugh, coloring everything in Kourai’s apartment the color of the sunrise. Oranges, reds, and purples, a masterpiece of the sky’s own making. “I guess there’s no bad time for these things,” 

“Why, did you want me to get down on one knee, and--” but Kourai stops because Shouyou cuts him off with a laugh that’s loud enough for him to hear no matter how far they may be. 

Kourai grins. 

“I want a garden,” Shouyou says, voice loud and clear. Steady. Constant. “For your sunflowers and my tomatoes,” 

“God, that’s exactly what I thought,” now it’s Kourai’s turn to laugh, albeit this one is a bit shaky, his eyes suddenly stinging. He’s crying, he knows it, the first tear that rolls down his cheek warm. But his heart is full and his soul is golden and there is nothing wrong with crying, not when it’s like this. “You’re perfect, y’know that?” 

△

When Shouyou asks him what kind of flower he likes the best, Kourai answers him without thinking too much about it, says he loves sunflowers, there’s something about the way they turn towards the sun, the way they dance in the breeze. There’s something magical about them. 

Shouyou leads him into the car that next weekend and tells him that there’s somewhere they need to go, but it’s a secret until they get there, and all Kourai does is roll his eyes and hide his smile by turning to look outside the window. 

The sky is blue and open and the trees are looming high, towers of green and pine.

Kourai doesn’t ask any questions about where they’re going, doesn’t feel too bothered by not knowing because it doesn’t matter, not when Shouyou reaches across the console and holds his hand whenever he sees Kourai tapping his fingers on his knee. An athlete who can’t sit still for long periods of time, that’s him. 

“Almost there,” Shouyou tells him, squeezing on his hand. 

Kourai brings their joined hand up to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of Shouyou’s, likes that it gets a laugh of surprise from him, likes that his eyes crinkle in the corners when he laughs. 

They get there without Shouyou having to announce that they have because the field of sunflowers pop right into his vision, a vivid color of yellows and oranges and green standing tall and proud under the blue sky, all turned towards the sun, smiling, laughing, dancing in the sweet afternoon breeze and drinking up the sunlight. 

Kourai looks away from the large, rolling garden and turns to Shouyou.

There’s a few other people here visiting the gardens. 

His fingers twitch to hold onto him but he knows he can’t, not here, not with so many people, so he curls it into a small fist. Shakes his head to try to shake the want away but it doesn’t work. It never works, not when the want is also another constant in Kourai’s life. 

Shouyou notices, ever keen, ever perceptive, and brushes their shoulders while they walk, their pinky fingers locking briefly. 

“Sunflowers,” Shouyou announces as they stop in the middle of the field, sunflowers up to their hips, to their shoulders, sunflowers that are even taller than them. It’s beautiful and Kourai thinks that this is his new favorite place. He looks at Shouyou and he thinks that this boy is his favorite place. “Because you said they were magical,” 

Kourai’s throat is tight and his chest is tight and he wonders if he’s sick or if he’s about to faint because he feels like he just might but then Shouyou twines their fingers together and squeezes, and Kourai knows that this is just what happy tastes like, what happy feels like. This is what being stupidly in love is like. 

“We should get a photo,” Kourai says, already taking his phone out. 

“Frame it and put it up in your apartment,” Shouyou laughs, teasing. 

“If you look good enough in it,” Kourai has found his voice again even though it’s not as strong as he wants it to be but that’s alright, that’s alright, they’re in the middle of a field of sunflowers and Shouyou is holding onto his hand, and this is Kourai’s favorite place. 

Someone takes their photo for them. 

Shouyou is caught mid-laugh and Kourai is pictured just looking at him, a dumb fool’s smile on his face. 

They’re alright. 

△

December comes quickly, the cold air stinging his cheeks and making his limbs ache. 

They get a short holiday for the holidays, Kourai more thankful than anything to leave his empty apartment and pack the little things that he owns in a single suitcase that he drags behind him.

It’s even colder here in Nagano, the mountains blanketed with a beautiful white and the trees frozen. Kourai has always liked winter, has grown up accustomed to the cold, burning and bright white. Has fond memories of his childhood, of playing in the snow with his older brother, his mother watching them from the window with a smile on her face because they are winter’s children, she had said, stroking their cheeks that one early New Year morning. 

Kourai touches a hand to his cheek at the memory of his mother’s touch, and he smiles as he looks up at his childhood home. It’s been so long since he’s last been home, so long since he’s had the comfort of family to warm him up in the coldest days of the year. 

And December this year is colder for so many different reasons, too. 

He sees movement from the window, sees his mother’s silhouette from the curtains and he smiles. He’s pushing the small gate open, ready to head for the door, when something crashes into him, pushing him off balance. 

“What--” Kourai blinks up in surprise. He’s on the ground, there’s snow on his jeans and his hair and he’s about to get really royally pissed about it when Hinata Shouyou’s face comes into view, blocking the clear blue sky. 

Shouyou smiles down at him, hand reaching out to help him.

Kourai doesn’t move to get up at all, just stays on the ground in the snow, staring up at Shouyou’s face.

“I think I might be concussed,” he says, purely in disbelief. 

Shouyou rolls his eyes and grabs his arms, pulling him up easily. 

Kourai trips over his feet and falls into Shouyou’s arms and he stays, lets Shouyou wrap his arms around him and hold him as Kourai processes just exactly what’s happening, because it’s cold, it’s really, really cold, but Shouyou is here, in his childhood home, where his mother waits inside with a hot meal. It’s December and New Year’s is coming up in a few days and Kourai is home and he’s so, so cold but Shouyou is here, real and tangible and close, closer than he’s ever been in months, and--

And Kourai takes in a shuddering breath. 

“This isn’t a concussion?” his arms go around Shouyou’s, fingers clutching at Shouyou’s coat. 

“No,” Shouyou says, voice lower, gentler. There is no noisy reunion for the both of them, there is no loud laughter or loud proclamations, there is just this quiet acceptance that Kourai is home and Shouyou is, too, that they’re both finally where they need to be after being away for months, in a country that’s twelve hours behind and ten thousand miles away from Japan. “Hirugami-san picked me up today, helped set the whole thing up with your parents, and--”

And it is Shouyou’s turn to take in a shuddering breath. 

He cuts himself off and instead just buries his face in the space between Kourai’s neck and his shoulder, nose brushing against the base of Kourai’s throat as he hugs him, eyes shut tight. 

Kourai holds him just as tightly, feels the steady rise and fall of Shouyou’s chest against his, the warmth that envelopes them different. A de novo kind of warmth in the middle of December, when the ground is frozen and the sky is white, white, white. 

“Are you crying?” Shouyou asks after a moment because Kourai hasn’t said anything else besides _This isn’t a concussion_ and it might be looking like one now, perhaps Kourai had knocked his head on a garden gnome, or whatever, and he’s concussed, but Kourai doesn’t think he’s concussed, doesn’t think about anything at all except that Shouyou is in his arms for December and they’ll be spending New Year’s together, they’ll be _together_ , and--

And Kourai takes in a shuddering breath. 

“Yes,” Kourai admits, pulling away with extreme difficulty. He blinks heavy eyes at Shouyou. His vision is swimming, eyes a puddle of tears, and Shouyou just smiles gently at him, lifting both hands up to swipe away at his tears. 

“I think your mom is going to kill me,” Shouyou whispers, leaning in close. “I’ve only been here a few hours and I’ve already made her son cry,” 

That makes Kourai cry even more, teeth biting down on his lower lip as he pulls Shouyou in for another hug, eyes shut tight because this is all that matters right now, this is all that will keep him warm during these cold, frigid days. 

“Come on,” Shouyou nudges his chin gently up, the smile that plays across his features one that Kourai will know wherever he goes. It is the same smile he sees in his dreams, when he closes his eyes, when he thinks about all the good things in his life. It is the same summer-sure smile that puts the sunrise to shame. “Look at me, Kourai,” 

It’s hard because Kourai’s vision is blurry and he’s still crying, god, he hasn’t allowed himself to cry this hard before and it’s embarrassing, his brother will laugh at him, he’ll never hear the end of this from Sachirou, and his mother--his mother, with her gentle hands and warm, warm eyes, will still call him winter’s son, will tell him that when all we have in the winter is the cold, and the ice, and the snow, a little rain won’t hurt the earth once in a while. A little rain. 

Kourai looks at Shouyou’s face and recognizes the sweet, sweet summer rain in his eyes, a mirror to Kourai’s winter rain. 

Shouyou nudges their noses together, pressing a kiss just to the edge of Kourai’s mouth, and murmurs, “Welcome home.” 

December this year is colder for different reasons but Shouyou is touching his face with his warm hands, and smiling at him with his warm smile, and looking at him with his warm eyes, and Kourai is home. Kourai is home and he is warm. 

△

Losing fucking _sucks_. 

Well, usually, anyway. This defeat doesn’t really feel too bad, not when Kourai admits that for once, just this one single game, Hinata Shouyou had been better than him, had flown higher, had fought harder. 

And it doesn’t really suck that they lost. 

Perhaps if there’s one thing Kourai regrets then it’s the time that they spent on the court together. Six years since they’d last played against each other. A game that was six years in the making and over all too soon, as if all Kourai had to do was blink once when the game started and then blink another time and it was over already. 

Is that what happens when you’re having the time of your life?

It must be, because Kourai isn’t too bummed about it.

Neither are Kageyama and Ushijima. It stings, of course, because they’d had such a good winning streak, but it’s not the end of the world. It had been a game for the books. A game that Kourai will replay over and over in his head, not a single play he’ll regret. 

Kourai also doesn’t regret allowing the other boys to drag him into a post game celebration at somebody’s apartment--he can’t remember whose, probably Bokuto’s or Miya’s, _somebody’s_ , it doesn’t matter because Kourai is here and the rest of his teammates are spread around somewhere, so it’s fine. They all need to unwind, anyway. 

The music is loud in his ears and the drinks are starting to hit, his face heating up. He casts a sweeping glance around the living room--too many people, athletes that he’d had the honor of playing against when he was in high school, and then all over again now, in his professional career. 

If you think about it. If you really think about it, it’s kind of awesome. Like, the kind of awesome that would take people’s breath away, because who would have thought?

Certainly not Kourai.

“Hoshiumi-san, are you okay?” he recognizes the face only because it looks exactly like Miya Atsumu’s. 

Kourai blinks up at Miya Osamu and nods his head. Waves a hand up to excuse himself because he’s fine, he’s fine, his face is just a little hot, and the living room is a little loud, and everybody is a little too close to him. 

The foyer is empty when he steps in, everyone else spread around the living room and the kitchen. In here, the music is far away, the sound of chatter and laughter distant. Kourai can finally hear his own thoughts, can finally feel his face. 

He sits himself down on a chair and nurses the cup of water Miya Osamu had passed him before he’d excused himself, takes small sips. He’s not drunk. Professional athletes who take care of themselves do not get drunk. Or--at least, they don’t get shitfaced sloshed, anyway, and Kourai isn’t shitfaced sloshed. It’s just the alcohol. Just a little bit. He’s _fine_. 

“Are you okay?” someone else asks him, and Kourai stares into his cup, fingers tightening. 

“I’m _fine_ ,” the inflection is there and he regrets it almost instantly because the people around him in this party tonight are people from his youth, from a time in his life when he thought he was untouchable, golden and brave. He knows them, in some way, shape or form. He knows them and Kourai--yeah, Kourai is just the teeniest, tiniest bit drunk. 

Kourai lifts his eyes up to the voice and his words die in his throat when he sees Hinata Shouyou looking at him, eyes bright and a question on the edge of his lips. 

“Sorry,” Kourai says, finally finding the words. He sets the cup of water down. “Yeah, no more drinking tonight,” 

To his utter horror, Hinata laughs. Not even the kind of laugh that Kourai had expected because Hinata hadn’t looked like he was gearing up to laugh. No, this laugh is a laugh that Kourai had startled out of him. 

Hinata, with his head thrown back and an easy, languid curve to everything around him. Hinata, who shakes his head and smiles down at Kourai when he finally calms down. 

Kourai, who looks at Hinata and stares openly. Six years, he thinks. Seeing Hinata out on court had been different to seeing him here tonight. Kourai had only blinked and six years had passed. 

“Get up, Hoshiumi-san,” Hinata reaches a hand out to him. 

Kourai is in somebody’s apartment. There’s a party. His team had lost the game. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. 

He looks at Hinata’s hand. He blinks once and his hand is already in Hinata’s, who pulls him up to his feet and steadies him, his smile easy, the edges of his lips turning up into a playful grin that Kourai has never seen before, that makes his gut twist and his throat feel like there’s one very large boulder lodged somewhere there, somewhere in the middle. 

“Where are we going?” Kourai thinks that perhaps this question has always lived inside of him. He stares at their hands, Hinata’s fingers curled over his. Kourai is burning and he is alive the same way his words are, finally, finally, _finally_. 

“Just here,” Hinata pulls him to the centre of the room. They are alone, the sound of the party from a few doors down merely an echo, now. “Come dance with me,” 

“I’m not very good at dancing,” Kourai admits, cheeks burning and this time it’s definitely not because of the alcohol. It’s definitely because Hinata Shouyou is close to him, one hand gripping Kourai’s own, and the other settling on Kourai’s hip, and like, what the fuck, what the _fuck_ , Kourai had just _blinked_ and now they’re dancing. 

“Me, neither,” Hinata laughs that same laugh again, a waterfall kind of laugh that sounds refreshing in this dimly lit room, the only sound their footsteps and the distant sound of the party, like it’s ten thousand miles away and twelve hours behind them. “Y’know, my friends back in Brazil, they tried to teach me how to dance, but I don’t think I’m cut out for it,” 

A shy smile that feels like a knife in Kourai’s gut. All Hinata has to do is twist it and Kourai will fall. 

“I think we can do it slowly,” Kourai puts his hand over Hinata’s shoulder, lets his fingers curl over the curve and squeeze. Hinata breathes out underneath him, chest falling, and Kourai wonders if this is what it’s like to step on a live wire--everything in him is electrified, nerves on end. 

Kourai lets Hinata take the lead even though Hinata steps on his foot more often than he doesn’t but it’s alright, if only because Kourai likes the sound of Hinata’s laugh, likes that he’s the one making Hinata laugh, and perhaps they’re both just a little bit drunk from the high of a wonderful game, from the blink and you miss it moments: six years, ten thousand miles, and twelve hours. The distance shrinks as they move to no music in particular, just Hinata humming a slow song under his breath while Kourai keeps count in his head head, _one, two, three, four_ , Hinata stepping on his foot at _three_ while Kourai turns them around in a small circle, careful not to knock anything over. 

Hinata is alive in his arms and Kourai can’t help but stare at him the whole time. There is no music. The party is a distant echo but anyone could walk in on them now and see them dancing awfully to nothing but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, because Kourai is dancing with Hinata Shouyou and there is no distance between them anymore, just a song that Kourai hears in his head when he closes his eyes, just Hinata’s hand in his as they dance together, too slow for this kind of party but slow enough for two people who have spent years of their lives bulldozing ahead, like two stars burning through the sky at an unimaginable speed only to stop and fall slowly together. It feels like that.

Not for the first time, Kourai thinks that Hinata Shouyou is strange. But he is also genuine. 

“You think this is weird?” Hinata asks him, a grin on his face that Kourai can’t hope to match because looking at Hinata Shouyou feels like he’s looking directly at the sky at eight in the morning, when the sun is high and the sky is clear and bright, and nothing is in the way. 

“Yeah, definitely,” but Kourai smiles, because he’s dancing with Hinata. “Might be a bit out of our minds,” 

Kourai laughs at that, because he’s dancing with Hinata, and Hinata laughs, because Kourai is finally laughing a laugh that fills the entire room with sweet, sweet music that’s been unheard of since. 

“Think we are,” Hinata squeezes on his hand. They’ve stopped moving but neither of them pull away from each other. “It’s been a really, really long time, Hoshiumi-san,” 

Kourai looks at their joined hands. At his hand curled over Hinata’s shoulder. At Hinata’s hand still on his hip. So many places they’re connected in ways that Kourai could never have even dared himself to dream. 

He looks at Hinata and he smiles, and then he laughs, and they might not be dancing anymore but there is a song in Kourai’s mind that he hears whenever Hinata looks at him and it’s the sweetest melody Kourai’s ever heard. 

_Six years, ten thousand miles, and twelve hours_ , Kourai wants to say, but instead he just squeezes Hinata’s hand, likes that it startles another smile out of Hinata and says, “Yeah, but you’re here now,” 

Hinata looks at him, holds his gaze, and then pulls him along for one spinal spin around the room, their fingers curling over each other’s before they pull away completely. 

“That’s true,” Hinata says, hand dropping back down to his side. “I’m here.” 

△

The sound of the match dwindles down as the network puts on some background music. The camera pans away from the empty court to follow the athletes as they make their way out. 

Kourai finds Shouyou immediately. He can find Shouyou wherever, really--in the middle of a match, even from a seat so far up it’s impossible to see anything clearly except for the blur of orange on the court. In the middle of a crowd of people in a busy downtown street. In the middle of the ocean, the waves so high they threaten to pull them both down. Kourai has never had trouble finding Shouyou.

He watches Shouyou make his exit with the rest of the team. His new colors look good on him. His hair is a little bit longer, too. Kourai’s fingers curl over his knee at the thought of running his fingers through Shouyou’s hair. It’s a phantom limb kind of pain. Kourai carries it with him wherever he goes.

Some days are easy. Some days are simple. And then there are days like today where all Kourai wants to do is touch Shouyou even when he knows he’s too far. When he gives in to thoughts of missing him, the kind where it hurts, where it feels like the world is closing in and the sky is turning pitch black. That kind of missing. It’s tragic, it really is. 

It’s one of those days. 

Kourai’s phone rings beside him, Shouyou’s name flashing on the screen. He smiles, a voluntary action at just reading Shouyou’s name, seeing his photo blinking up at him. 

He answers it on the second ring, hears Shouyou breathe out a sigh of relief and says, “Hey,” and then, after another beat, “We won,”

“I know,” and it might be one of those days but Kourai is also extremely proud of Shouyou, happy for his team. Happy that he’s gone so far. Flown so high. Kourai is happy about that because he can be, and he’s sad about Shouyou being far away, too, because he can be. “I saw,” 

Kourai listens to Shouyou talk about the game like Kourai hadn’t seen everything, like he hadn’t kept his eyes glued to Shouyou the whole time. He hums and he sings his praises and his heart soars, it really does, because Shouyou is happy, and Kourai is happy, and it’s not always that easy sometimes because feelings are complicated. People are complicated. But it doesn’t always have to be tragic, missing people. Not really. 

“Wish you were here,” Shouyou says it in a voice that’s louder than a whisper and Kourai can’t help but smile because Shouyou is in a foreign country where nobody around him directly understands Japanese. He can call his boyfriend whenever he wants, say whatever he wants, and nobody will blink an eye.

This time, Kourai closes his eyes. Sees the lighthouse during a particularly stormy day. The beacon is steady and strong, guiding lost sailors safely back to shore. Kourai sees Shouyou’s eyes, his nose, and then the faintest curve of a smile on his lips. Kourai thinks about a lighthouse and he sees Shouyou. 

“I know,” Kourai doesn’t tell him that he saw it on Shouyou’s face after the game was over and an interviewer asked him in English how he felt, if there were any plans to go back to Japan, if there’s anything at all that he wanted to say. 

Shouyou had told the reporter just one thing, the smile on his face not quite reaching his eyes when he looked at the camera, _I really, really miss Japan_. 

“Miss you,” Shouyou tells him now, voice strong and clear. “Make sure to dry your hair before you sleep,” 

_I miss you every goddamn second of every goddamn day_ , Kourai says, but it comes out as, “Yeah, okay, you nag too much, do you know that?”

Shouyou sighs rather dramatically for a star player who’d just scored the winning point and tells him in a very playful tone, “Only because I love you,” 

“Must be nice,” Kourai smiles, looking at the photo of Shouyou on his screen. He swipes a thumb over his cheek. Like this, it almost feels like he’s touching Shouyou’s face. 

“Better for you since you have me,” there’s an edge to Shouyou’s voice that Kourai recognizes immediately--this is how he sounds like when he’s just about to cry. 

Not for the first time, Kourai wishes he could reach into the screen and pull Shouyou out of it and into his arms and just cradle him as the whole world shook.

“It is,” Kourai tells him, fingers tight around the phone. “Yeah, I think I might just be the luckiest man alive,”

That startles a laugh out of Shouyou. Kourai is so, so fond of his laugh, this short, happy little laugh that sounds a lot like early summer days in his youth, when he stared up at the sky and watched as the birds flew overhead. It is Kourai’s favorite sound, that laugh. 

Shouyou tells him to shut up but the edge is gone from his voice, the tears far, far away for today. 

It’s not a bad day after all. 

△

The night before Shouyou has to leave for Brazil is a very ordinary night. 

They’d spend the whole day just indoors, Kourai stuffing all the clothes that Shouyou refused to bring, that Shouyou kept unpacking, because there’s no space, there’s no space, _There is no space, Kourai_ , and Kourai had heard it for what it meant: _Is there space for me there? Will there be space for me when I come back here?_

With the patience of a young man who’d waited so long until he could play against Hinata Shouyou again, and then even longer until he finally mustered up the courage to ask him out, and then even more until Kourai finally, finally got the message and kissed him—Kourai had only looked at him and smiled, fingers touching Shouyou’s face like a prayer, a promise that didn’t need to be spoken out loud. 

Kourai has done his fair share of waiting. He can wait more, he’s pretty good at it, if he says so himself. So Kourai helped Shouyou repack all of his things into two suitcases that he hopes would be enough to keep Shouyou comfortable, the familiar feeling of home in his well worn t-shirts and the few hoodies of Kourai that he’d managed to sneak in. 

Everything is packed and Shouyou is ready to go on a flight that leaves for Brazil at one in the afternoon. That’s only a few handful of hours from now. So little time that Kourai is afraid of even looking at Shouyou now for fear of being too obvious, too open. Because he’d held up so well in the past few months. Had not shown one single crack. 

“You can tell me not to go,” Shouyou tells him, shifting on the bed. He turns on his side to look at Kourai. 

Kourai turns to his side to look at Shouyou, eyes drifting from the curve of Shouyou’s lips, and then to the slope of his nose, before he lifts them up to meet Shouyou’s gaze. Kourai brings a hand up and pinches Shouyou’s nose, “Don’t start,” 

Shouyou scrunches his nose, “I mean, you never did tell me,” 

Here is where the Earth stops. Here is where the tide recedes so far away that it never meets the shore again. Here is where the fog is thickest. Here is where Kourai must not falter, not tonight. 

“Because I want you to go,” Kourai fixes a smile to his face. It reaches his eyes, because one can’t smile at Shouyou and not mean it. It’s virtually impossible. “And because I know you want to go, too,” 

Shouyou lifts his hand to brush Kourai’s hair out of his eyes, the movement so slow, so achingly tender that Kourai’s heart squeezes painfully. “You won’t miss me?”

The thing about loving Shouyou is that it is equal parts terrifying and mystical because on one hand, Kourai is terrified of the lengths he would go to give Shouyou the world, and on the other he is mystified by the lengths the world would go to give itself to Shouyou. 

So yeah, leaving sucks. Yeah, Kourai will be lonely. Yeah, he’ll be sad, but the sky is too wide for Shouyou to be flying in the same patch of blue all his life. 

It is a known fact that a crow is a wild animal, you simply cannot hope to cage it. It is also a known fact that the average lifespan of a seagull is twenty years. They mate for life. 

Kourai pushes himself off the bed and moves to straddle Shouyou in one swift motion. He presses a hand over Shouyou’s chest.

“Of course I’ll miss you,” Kourai curls his fingers over where Shouyou’s heart is. Feels the rising and falling of Shouyou’s chest under his hand, the steady drum beat of his heart. “Every goddamn second of every goddamn day, you bet,” 

Kourai drags his knuckles lightly over Shouyou’s cheek and smiles down at him. 

“You will do amazing things, Hinata Shouyou,” a promise, a proclamation, a prayer. 

Shouyou stares up at him with wide eyes tinged with just a hint of doubt and fear. “I just wish--” _that you would be there with me. That it didn’t have to be so far._

Kourai hears everything that Shouyou doesn’t say, because the eyes, if you let them speak for themselves, can tell a whole story. 

So he turns his hand over and cups Shouyou’s cheek, watches as Shouyou turns his head towards him and kisses the inside of his palm. Wildfire. 

This is his favorite place, Kourai thinks, looking down at Shouyou. This moment, this place, this boy--it is home, even with the impending twelve hour difference and the distance of ten thousand miles between them. _Again_. 

But Kourai thinks that being away from each other is not so tragic when he looks at Shouyou and feels a love that’s bigger than the whole world. 

Shouyou tugs on his hand and brings Kourai down for a kiss, fingers slipping into Kourai’s hair and holding him there, still and steady against him.

Kourai stays. 

△

“I’m going to be playing against Kageyama,” Shouyou says, sounding as excited as he looks. 

Kourai lifts the blanket higher up to his chin, grins when he says, “Tell him I said hi,” and then quickly follows up with, “Kick his ass,” 

Shouyou laughs.

Kourai laughs, too, because it’s infectious.

Outside, the rain falls. Torrential, merciless. Monsoon season has been over for months but the rain has not spared them at all. It’s cold and wet and Kourai hates it. 

“I’ll let him know you miss him,” Shouyou says, smiling. 

“Hell no,” if Kourai wasn’t so bogged down by the day’s events then he would have sat up indignantly at that but as it stands, he’s tired, and it’s raining, and there’s a very fine detail about Hoshiumi Kourai that people don’t know, that reporters will never get out of him: he is afraid of lightning and thunder. 

Kourai does a pretty good job of distracting Shouyou, phone kept on the other side of the bed, farthest from the window. He keeps it trained to his face, doesn’t want Shouyou to see the lashing of rain on his windows or the crack of lightning in the sky. But thunder rolls loudly and Kourai flinches.

Shouyou stops mid-sentence about something the local cat in his apartment was doing that morning and furrows his eyebrows.

“Kourai,” Shouyou starts, finally picking up on what Kourai had tried to hide the whole call. “How bad is it?”

Kourai rolls his eyes. “Not that bad, trust me,” 

Another crack of lightning that illuminates the dark sky. It is followed by a roll of thunder that sounds so deafening, Kourai wonders if the storm is actually just in his own room. 

“You have practice,” Kourai says rather flimsily, because Shouyou is still looking at him with furrowed brows that Kourai wants to smooth out. “And I have a game in a few days, too, so I need to sleep,” 

“I’m telling you, I’m on my break,” which is something Kourai finds suspicious because Shouyou’s break is awfully long for a very busy time of the day. “I can wait until you’re asleep,” 

This is what Kourai didn’t want. He tries hard not to take up too much of Shouyou’s time when he’s out in practice especially, doesn’t want to monopolize. A twelve hour time difference will make it hard sometimes but they’ve managed to get by really, really well the past year. 

So he tries again, raises his voice above the noise of the rain and says, “Shouyou, you need to get back to practice,” 

Shouyou, the nerve of him, just rolls his eyes. “And I’m telling you, I’m in the middle of my break. Now, try to get some sleep,”

This time, when Kourai looks at Shouyou’s face, he finds that Shouyou is no longer frowning, brows relaxed, and his mouth turned upwards in a soft smile. 

Kourai props his phone on his pillow and turns to his side to look at Shouyou, bright orange hair, bright brown eyes, and a smile that he wants to keep for himself. A smile that he sees whenever he closes his eyes, whenever he aches, and misses, and goddamn does he miss so much tonight.

The bed is too large, the storm too loud, and Kourai too cold. 

“I miss you,” Kourai finally says. “Like, every goddamn second of every goddamn day,”

The rain doesn’t relent at all but that’s okay because Shouyou is smiling at him in that tender, magical way that he does that makes Kourai feel warm. 

“I miss you, too,” because that is never a question, it is always a statement. Always a recurring feeling. A recurring ache. “But just a little while more. You know it’s just for a little while more,” 

Kourai closes his eyes, nods. “Yeah, I do,”

“So,” and here Shouyou’s voice turns up, sounding just a little bit shy of teasing. “Do you want me to sing you a song?”

If Kourai had been tired earlier and ready to sleep, now he’s awake, eyes wide open as he shakes his head and groans. “No, please don’t,”

But it’s futile. Shouyou, who can’t really sing anything on key but likes to try, anyway, if only to make Kourai laugh, launches into a song that Kourai doesn’t know, doesn’t recognize. A song in Portueguese that he doesn’t understand. 

And for some goddamn reason, Shouyou can carry a note better in Portuguese than he can in Japanese. 

Halfway through the song, Shouyou stops to grin at Kourai, who only blinks sleepily at him. 

“I mentioned you’ve been having problems sleeping so our libero’s wife taught me the song,” Shouyou looks very, very proud of himself. Kourai is also very, very impressed. “She said it always put her baby to sleep every night,”

Now that Kourai actually blushes at. Sometimes, Shouyou makes him feel like he’s seventeen again, emotions easily catching up to him. He wants to hide behind his duvet but he doesn’t, just huffs out a breath. 

“I’m not a baby,” is all Kourai says, rather petulantly. He ends up yawning near the end and it only makes Shouyou smile even brighter at him. 

“No, you’re not,” Shouyou hums the tune of the song. It’s a good song. A nice lullaby that Shouyou can actually sing on tune, and how much a surprise that is. Distance makes people grow, leaves a lot of room for surprises _._ Perhaps that’s one of the upsides to this whole long distance thing. “You’re a big baby, Kourai,”

Kourai wants to tell him that he’s actually older than Shouyou and, like, sorta two centimetres taller than him but that’s an argument that dies on the tip of his tongue when Shouyou starts to sing again, pleasant and soft and mesmerizing in his ears. 

It lulls Kourai to sleep before the next strike of lightning, before another particularly loud roll of thunder. He falls asleep before he says _good night_ , before he tells Shouyou, _Love you, orange head._ Before he sees the shift on Shouyou’s face, his bright smile turning quiet, the look in his eyes far away, like he isn’t in Brazil, like he’s right next to Kourai, and all he ever wants, with every fibre of his being, is to touch him. 

  
  


△

It’s been a full month since Shouyou had left. 

They’ve been--they’ve been doing fine, really. The distance hasn’t put a strain on their relationship, at least, not in the negative sense. _Really_. They’re just--getting by. Getting used to it. 

The twelve hour difference is a bit tricky but they’ve managed to set up a routine. But still. _But still_ , it feels like Kourai is missing out on so much of Shouyou’s life in Brazil by being twelve hours ahead and ten thousand miles away. _But still_ , Shouyou tells him everything, gives him a blow by blow account of his day, about what he’d done, who he’d seen, what he’d eaten. He skirts around conversation like _I miss you so much, some nights it’s hard to sleep_ and instead asks Kourai what he’d done at practice, if he’d taken a volleyball to the face again and if it hurt, and in turn Kourai skirts around conversation like _Some mornings I wake up really, really cold, and it sucks because I can’t stop missing you_ and instead tells Shouyou that he did _not_ take a volleyball to the face today, thanks, it happened _one_ time so _please forget about it_. 

They’ve got a system. They’re getting by. It works until it doesn’t, at the fifth week mark when Kourai is roused from sleep by the shrill sound of his phone ringing at one thirty in the morning. 

The first thing Kourai hears when he presses the phone to his ear is a deep, deep breath from Shouyou followed by a sharp, sharp exhale, and then a long stream of apologies, “Sorry, sorry, this was a bad idea, I woke you up, it’s two in the morning there, _shit_ , Kourai, _sorry_ , I’ll drop the call--”

Kourai’s voice, rough with sleep, coming in an instant just to say, “No, you’re not dropping the call,” 

He gives Shouyou a few moments to catch his breath, to calm down. Kourai counts the seconds that pass between them. Forty seconds until Shouyou’s breathing stops shaking and Kourai can feel that he’s calmed down, just a smidge.

Kourai tries again, “Why are you apologizing?” 

“Because it’s late, and you have practice tomorrow, and I should have just waited until the morning,” Shouyou is starting to talk really fast again and if Kourai doesn’t calm him down, they’re going to have a mess on their hands. “ _But_ ,” 

“Okay, first of all, fuck practice,” Kourai pushes himself up the pillows, sits down straighter and cradles his phone to his ear gently, because it’s an extension of him, now, these past few weeks of being away. It’s the only way he’s connected to Shouyou. “Second of all, talk to me, but _slowly,_ please, Shouyou. You’re running out of breath,” 

At that, Shouyou takes in a deep breath. Gives himself a few seconds before exhaling. It is steady.

“Okay, listen. I’m not--I’m not _miserable_ here. The people are nice, I have friends, but I just--was this a mistake?” Shouyou’s voice hitches. Another knife that twists in Kourai’s gut. “Some days it’s fine and other days it’s really, really hard, and I miss being home. I miss you every second of every day, and I can’t help but wonder if you hate me now for leaving,” 

A conversation from what feels like an entire lifetime ago, that one very ordinary day. 

_If you end up resenting me for this halfway through, then I don’t know how--_

Kourai didn’t know _how_ , then, and he still doesn’t know how, now, because he doesn’t resent the choices that Shouyou have made. He will never resent the choices Shouyou will make. Even if Shouyou had told him there was no way he was getting on that plane, Kourai would have found a way to drag him there and strap him to his seat. It would have always ended like this, no matter which route they took. 

So Kourai tells him, voice quiet because it is one in the morning and Shouyou is on the other end of the call nearly close to breaking, “Even if you backed out that day, I would’ve found a way to get you back on the plane,” 

That at least startles a hiccup out of Shouyou. “I made it just fine the first time I was here, didn’t I? So I thought coming back wouldn’t be so difficult, but,” and there it is again, the _but_. 

Kourai finds himself smiling, just a little bit sadly, just a little bit fondly. 

“Things change,” Kourai tells him. “Things change, and you had different reasons for leaving. You also have new reasons to come back, too,” 

“I’ll be back soon,” _Soon_ is not any definite amount of time. _Soon_ could be tomorrow, or the next week, or the next month, the next season or two. _Soon_ could be anytime from now. They both know it. But they hold onto it, anyway. 

“Very soon,” Kourai says, his smile lifting, feeling lighter. “Hey, I was saving this for the morning, but you know who’s coming in to the tryouts later? That four eyes of yours. _Tsukishima_ ,” 

Shouyou sniffles, like he’d been crying. Or had been close to it. 

“No way,” Shouyou sounds better, actually, like the news had startled him out of wanting to cry. Kourai is glad for this one trump card. “I have to call him,” 

This time, it’s Kourai’s turn to laugh. It sounds so disgustingly fond he wonders if this is a new level. 

“Shouyou,” Kourai says, still laughing, heart still soaring. “In the morning, okay?” 

“Okay,” Shouyou’s voice is steadier, his breathing even. “In the morning, then?” 

“No,” Kourai reaches a hand out in the dark, feeling around for the lamp. He turns it on and then lifts his phone up to his face, this time to tap once on the little video icon. “No, you stay right here with me until the morning.” 

Shouyou’s face is blurry for a few moments until he finally loads in. Mess of orange hair and bottom lip swollen from his constant worrying down on it, the edges of his eyes just a little bit wet. But he smiles a little shyly at Kourai when Kourai smiles at him. 

They have a system, Kourai and Shouyou. It’s pretty foolproof, really.

△

The time difference isn’t too bad. Only seven hours to Brazil’s twelve. This is an improvement, thinks Kourai as he drags his luggage behind him. 

It’s just a little past eleven in the morning and the airport is already so busy. It’s always so busy. And it might sound just a bit ironic but Kourai’s never liked airports. He likes flying, likes being up in the sky, seeing the clouds up close, the night skies. Passing through the international date line. He likes that. He just doesn’t like being stuck in an airplane for longer than he needs to be and fifteen goddamn hours on a plane is _hell_ , it’s literal hell, but, oh, the things he does for love. 

Kourai dials Shouyou’s number quickly, foot tapping impatiently as he waits for him to pick up, and Kourai isn’t an impatient man by nature, not at all. It’s just that he’s excited. Like, really, really fucking excited. 

“Hey,” Kourai says before Shouyou can say anything. “Call the front desk and tell them to give me a key to your room,” 

A long moment of silence until Shouyou just asks, “What?” 

“I said,” Kourai can feel the smile already knocking the weariness from the flight off his face, can feel himself start to look like a complete fool in the middle of the airport but it doesn’t matter, none of it matters. “Call the front desk and tell them to give me a key to--” 

“Where are you?” Shouyou is only starting to realize, because of course Kourai has made _this_ into a surprise. Of course he’d spent days just sitting down on this, keeping it from him. 

The airport bustles around him, alive with the thousands of people who are ready to leave and then the thousands more who are finally coming home. 

“Oh my god,” Shouyou’s voice rises. “You’re not--” 

Kourai barks out a laugh, as in, he barks out a laugh, head tossed back with the force of it. 

“I wanted to see you kick Kageyama’s ass in person,” 

He thinks Shouyou is crying because there’s only a few beats of silence on the other end of the call that are then followed by some sniffles, and _god_ , this time that doesn’t hurt Kourai’s heart at all. It only makes him smile, makes his hands ache to touch, to bring Shouyou against him and hold him for as long as he wants. For as long as he can. 

“Are you crying?” Kourai teases anyway, and he’s still smiling this fool’s smile. Kourai thinks he won’t be able to stop. “Shouyou, you’re _crying_ ,” 

Shouyou sniffles and for some reason he makes it sound defiant. God, Kourai is in love with this ridiculous boy. 

“Yes, now end the call so I can talk to the front desk, and--” a pause, Shouyou breathing in sharply. “ _God_ , I love you, but also, _why_ would you do this?” 

Kourai can only laugh, a bellyache kind of laugh that he hasn’t laughed in a longtime. The kind of laugh that makes Shouyou stop crying and join him, and it’s glorious. 

This is Kourai’s favorite sound, their laughter. It makes everything seem brighter, lighter, his heart fuller. 

“Think of this as pay back for New Year’s.”

△

There is a screen door in the kitchen that opens to a small backyard garden. There are sunflowers planted in the corner turned towards the sun, smiling, laughing, dancing in the sweet afternoon breeze and drinking up the sunlight.

And then in the middle a small patch of freshly grown tomatoes, cherry red and plump. 

Shouyou looks away from the garden and twists in Kourai’s arms, one hand coming up to touch Kourai’s cheek. 

“Are you going to cry?” Shouyou asks, only half teasing. 

Kourai looks past Shouyou at the garden, at the trees that line the fence. He looks up at the sky, too, bright and open with possibilities. 

And then he looks at Shouyou and he feels his heart spill. 

“No,” Kourai tells him, only half teasing. He wraps an arm around Shouyou’s middle and brings him even closer to press a kiss to his forehead, and then to the tip of his nose before kissing Shouyou’s smile, just for good measure. 

Shouyou squirms in his hold, ticklish, but Kourai doesn’t let him go.

They laugh a summer’s worth of laughter and fall into each other’s arms, tumbling down until they’re both on their backs and lying down in the grass.

Kourai tangles their fingers together. 

“You think we can add the tomatoes in for dinner tonight?” Shouyou asks him, grin so bright that the sunflowers start to mistake it for the sun, because by nature sunflowers will always turn towards the sun, and right now they’re looking at Shouyou.

Kourai is looking at Shouyou. 

“That sounds like a plan.” Kourai says. 

It’s a pretty good plan. 

**Author's Note:**

> [gestures vaguely] i. uh. yeah. that's it, then. 
> 
> catch me on [twt](https://twitter.com/HOSHIUMIKOURAl), maybe.


End file.
